


An Impossibly Deep Shade of Blue

by stormwalkers



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: 1242 words of snogging, Established Relationship, F/M, Ficlet, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Nightmares, post-TEG
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24187276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormwalkers/pseuds/stormwalkers
Summary: Lucy, Lockwood, and a nightmare of the past.
Relationships: Lucy Carlyle/Anthony Lockwood
Comments: 20
Kudos: 83





	An Impossibly Deep Shade of Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This little ficlet was inspired by an art piece from the incomparable Achilles Angst! [Check it out here.](https://achillesangst.tumblr.com/post/618128059161329664/hurtcomfort-locklyle-its-more-likely-than-you) And as always, thank you for reading.

* * *

I woke with the stench of blood and ectoplasm searing my tongue.

For a moment—a silent, awful moment, as if a soundless ghost was clamping its fingers around my neck—I was in a blind panic. My ears bled with the murmur of the dead, the cold hum I knew so well. My breaths came in short bursts. I had to get away, had to make the pain stop, the pain of seeing _him_ —

 _This is what I wanted,_ he’d said. _Did you really think you could save me?_

I shook my head, shivers jolting through me. My back was clammy, the fabric of my nightie clinging to my spine. I sat up, took a deep breath. Looked around.

I was not in the cold, dark cavern of my nightmare. There was no bloodied ghost, no gaping chest wound. No psychic whispers in my ear—whispers of _wanting this_ and _your fault_ and _too late…_

No hollow boy.

I was in bed. My room? No, Lockwood’s.

Lockwood…

My eyes whipped to my side. Lockwood wasn’t dead. He was safely sleeping next to me… or at least he had been. A hand reached out, fingers nudging the small of my back; Lockwood’s eyes twitched, blinking blearily as he stirred. Everything in me sighed with relief.

“What’s the matter?” he said—or that’s how I interpreted his sleep-garbled words, which sounded closer to _Wassmaha?_

“Nothing,” I sniffled, smiling weakly. Then I lay down and wrapped my arms about him, tucking my head under his chin.

Drowsy and barely awake though he was, Lockwood knew what it meant.

_Hold me._

And he did. Tight and well. He was familiar with nightmares, too.

We lay a while in silence. I tried to focus on the stillness of the night and the quiet rhythm of Lockwood’s breathing. In and out, in and out. He was real. Solid. Whole.

Suddenly that wasn’t enough.

“Lockwood,” I said tentatively and lifted my head to look at him.

“Hmh?”

I studied the mattress, almost embarrassed to ask the question. When I did, my voice was a whisper in the dead of night. “Would it be okay if we kissed for a bit?”

I immediately felt silly. There we were, half asleep, both bushed from a long night’s work—involving a very uncooperative Changer in a hardware shop—and I’d just asked him for a snog.

Lockwood’s eyes were closed, and his face was still as a pond. Had he heard me? I thought he’d nodded off again—but then his black eyelashes came unglued and he looked at me, eyes soft with sleep. My face was lethally hot; I half expected him to burn his fingers when he touched my cheek. But he just nodded.

“Until you fall asleep,” he whispered, and then he kissed me.

I let Lockwood’s closeness soothe my racing pulse as we lay there, my arms hooking under his. The kiss was nice. Slow and sweet. I don’t know if he expected me to be content with slow and sweet, but _I_ had no intentions of stopping there. I needed more—needed to know there was still breath in his lungs—and so I parted my lips to deepen the kiss… maybe a smidge too enthusiastically. It’s incredible how much teeth can get in the way of a kiss when your aim is less than perfect.

I felt Lockwood’s lips curve into a smile, and he drew back the tiniest bit, putting a hand to the side of his mouth. “Or until one of us chips a tooth, I suppose.”

I grinned back, possibly flushing a very bright shade of red, and began to apologise. But before I could, he moved to catch my lips (and other bits) again. My heart couldn’t decide between racing wildly and calming like the sea in the aftermath of a storm; Lockwood generally had both effects on me. Blood rushed through me as I kissed him, savouring the heat of his cheeks, the air from his lungs. I sighed.

 _Air._ His and mine.

This kiss was, in a word, deep. Eager. Like a hand pulling me out of the dark waters of my dream, sweeping me away from the place of drowning. And when had Lockwood and I not been in the habit of saving each other? I was starting to think he’d been coming to my rescue ever since we’d met, and I to his. Even before he’d let me know him. Even when it was best to be apart for a while.

And now. Now more than ever.

I shut my eyes tighter, making a contented noise as my arms gathered at the back of his neck. Lockwood’s hand slid down my waist, trailing fire as it went… and then his fingers moved beneath the hem of my nightie, closing over my leg. He made no move to go further, didn’t pinch or squeeze—he just held me like that, gently smoothing the small hairs on my thigh that I’d given up on taming long ago.

I could reach down and redirect his hand somewhere warmer. He could reach in and provide a mighty fine distraction from my awful, lingering nightmare. But that wasn’t the type of comfort I needed right then, and Lockwood seemed to know it. Instead, I wrapped my legs around his hips and let him place soft kisses on my neck.

From my new vantage point, I could see the nightstand next to Lockwood’s bed. Two framed photographs had recently been put on display there. One showed a teenage girl with a much younger boy on her lap and a calm look in her deep black eyes; on the other, a row of colourfully garbed tribespeople posed with a smiling couple in their midst. The four of them shared the same dark hair, pale skin and tall, slim physique.

From what I knew, Lockwood looked more like his father—but when he smiled, it was his mother who lived again. And when he looked up at me, eyes sparkling, I glimpsed the woman from the photograph, happy and beautiful. I threaded my necklace between my fingers, feeling the weight of it, the familiarity. Even in the dark, that lovely sapphire shone an impossibly deep shade of blue.

His family may be buried, but their pictures didn’t have to be anymore. And most importantly, Lockwood wasn’t.

I pressed my forehead against his, banishing the memory of the hollow boy from my mind. He’d been nothing more than a cruel parody of life. A bad dream. And bad dreams didn’t matter anymore. Not as long as Lockwood was here, and he was kissing me, and kissing me again, my name forming on his lips. _Lucy. Luce._

We kept at it, because we couldn’t stop. Even as our breathing slowed and our closed eyelids grew heavy; as Lockwood’s fingers went still in my hair and the warmth of the room lulled us ever closer to sleep; even then, his lips never left mine.

We were still sharing a breath when we finally fell asleep. I don’t know who went first, him or me. It wasn’t important.

The ghost’s cold whisper echoed in my mind, powerless and empty.

_Did you really think you could save me?_

Save Lockwood? Yes. As a matter of fact, I did. And as we drifted off together, hearts beating to a steady, shared rhythm, I knew I had.

We slept through the night.


End file.
